Abbey's Road: Abbey Leonardi's Unconventional Route to the Top

For a 5-foot-1 16-year-old who's barely audible, Leonardi can turn a lot of heads

For a 5-foot-1 16-year-old who's usually barely audible, Abbey Leonardi can turn a lot of heads.

"We went out for a run one day when she was 8 or 9 years old," her father, Jack, says about her first run. "My wife, myself, Abbey and her twin sister. We just kind of said, 'You guys wanna go?' I was running in the back and as we were running she was just so smooth and quiet. Her natural gait was just incredible, no effort to it. You could barely hear her feet touch the ground. When we got done I said to my wife, 'Wow.'"

Fast-forward to Leonardi's freshman year. Kristin Barry, a 2:40 marathoner, came to a high school meet to watch her compete. "I remember seeing her do drills while she was warming up," Barry says, "and I thought, 'Wow, she really knows what she's doing.' She just looked so much different than most of the teens you see at a meet."

Leonardi caused even more people to say "wow" last spring, when, as a sophomore, she won the Maine state 1600m and 3200m titles in 4:51 and 10:42, both state records. A week later, she won the New England 3200m title in 10:26, defeating all available juniors and seniors from Maine and five other states. She closed her sophomore year by taking fourth in the 2-mile at New Balance Nationals, also in 10:26 (and therefore superior to her New England 3200m time).

She's achieved all this while being in, but not of, her team at Kennebunk High School. "She's got a cross country coach and a track coach, but they have always allowed me to kind of, I won't say dictate, but guide how she's training," says Jack, a CFO of a security company who out of necessity has become a running autodidact. Leonardi's most frequent workout partner is Barry, who graduated from high school two years before Leonardi was born. Her mileage is modest ("I think the most I did in a week was 45," she says), the approach intentionally conservative. "We want to focus on not doing too much too soon in case I get burned out or don't like it or whatever," Leonardi says. Barry consults with Jack on the training to imprint on Leonardi's typical 35-mile week the guiding principles of Barry's 120-mile weeks. Meanwhile, Leonardi bikes and swims and works at a lemonade stand and otherwise tries to have a normal life.

Can this tattersall team get Leonardi on the podium at Foot Locker cross country nationals this fall?

Like many top teen runners, Leonardi was, by modern standards, active as a child. At the time of that first family run, she and her twin, Alex, played soccer and softball in warm months to bide their time for cross-country ski season, their true competitive passion. (The Leonardi girls won't be among the great running twins of history, by the way. "She's a little more rough of a runner, more physical," Jack says of minute-younger Alex, an all-state-caliber softball player.)

The daughter-father version of Leonardi's emergence as a runner goes like this:

"Over the summers I would run a mile or so once or twice a week," Leonardi says of her elementary school days in Massachusetts.

"It really wasn't until we moved here ..." Jack interjects about the family's relocation to Maine in 2005.

"In sixth grade they didn't have soccer," Abbey continues, "and I just decided to do cross country to stay in shape for skiing and soccer and stuff ."

"It's probably not until seventh grade that it became obvious that running was its own thing," Jack adds.

"In seventh grade I think I ran 4:50 [for 1500m] and 2:20 or something in the 800," Leonardi says matter-of-factly.

At this point Jack picks up the slack.

"The guy who really gave her her base understanding when she was in middle school was Mike LeBlanc, the cross country coach. He's a very knowledgeable guy. He recognized in Abbey before anybody the potential she had. He got her very sophisticated about how she warmed up and how she stretched and what her program would be," he says.

"He trained me at the same time," Jack continues. "I didn't have any real running background other than my own, which had no science behind it, it was just a go-out-and-run-how-you-feel kind of thing." (Now 50, Jack road-raced in his 30s, with a best of 30:45 for 5 miles.) "He based a lot of what he had Abbey do on Jack Daniels' book. Have you read it? I thought I was reading a chemistry textbook!"

Abbey intercedes, "I read it in eighth grade. When I first read it I just read it to say I got through the book, without really understanding it. Then I went back to it and would read something and say, 'Oh, whoops, I missed this.'"

As the Leonardis gradually increased their knowledge and Abbey's mileage, her talent became more apparent. She was the age-14 national champion at 1500m and, in the fall of 2008, won the New England cross country championship as a freshman. In the summer of 2009, Jack, who says, "I know when I don't know enough," reached out to Barry, a two-time U.S. Olympic marathon trials qualifier living half an hour north of the Leonardis.

"I think they were looking for guidance," Barry says. "They have this daughter who as a freshman broke state records, who clearly is better than a typical high school coach has experience with. Her parents have read a lot but still weren't quite sure what to do. Knowing that I've studied the sport a bit and had success with it, I think they felt comfortable implementing some of the things I suggested."

Barry and Leonardi began running together occasionally, with Barry urging Leonardi to back off on the pace of her recovery runs, showing her new elements such as hill sprints and meeting her for track sessions. The two complement each other well on the track, with Barry's marathoner strength obvious on 1200m repeats and Leonardi's talent coming through when she finishes off workouts with 200m reps in 30.

Despite her high-mileage habit, Barry meshed with the Leonardi's methodology.

"At no point did I suggest she should increase her mileage," says Barry, for whom 90 miles is a rest week. "What I tried to do is have her break up her week a little differently, like do a little bit of a longer run. Even if you're only doing 35 miles a week, instead of more 6-milers maybe make this run 9 or even 10. And she'd do things like a 2-mile tempo run but it'd be like two 5:30 miles, so I kind of explained tempo isn't that fast for you, why not do 20 minutes or 3 miles at maybe 6:00 pace. Some of it was counterintuitive to her."

Abbey Leonardi chats with her team: Kristin Barry (back to camera), and parents Linda and Jack.

Last fall, Leonardi placed second at the Foot Locker Northeast regional meet, and 22nd at the national race. This fall as a junior, she says, she wants to challenge last year's regional winner, New York's Aisling Cuffe, "and definitely at nationals I'm not going to go into the race and do something stupid. Maybe as a senior I'll try to win nationals."

With her track times falling so rapidly, she's similarly vague about her goals for the outdoor season, offering, "I want to keep getting faster and better and qualifying for nationals and placing higher."

Beyond high school, a large motivation for the Leonardis' current moderation is to get her to a Division 1 school physically and mentally fresh, and still on the upswing, unlike so many girls high school stars. Says Barry, "I think the great thing about her is that she's so good with her mileage being so low. I think that's attractive for college coaches when they see how much potential she has for when she goes up to 60 or 70 miles a week and beyond.

"She wants to be one of the best in the U.S. and beyond, if possible," Barry continues. "And I think she has the talent, the work ethic, the drive to do all that. At the state meet she was 19 seconds ahead of second place. She ran a 4:51. To be able to maintain that intensity mentally completely alone as a sophomore ... When she has the strength will she be able to do three of those in a 5K? Probably."

"I'm envious of anyone in high school today because you can find out anything about how anybody trains," says Barry, who was a 5:20 miler as a 1992 Maine high school graduate. "When I was in high school my dad and I went to the bookstore and there were like two books available. Now you can go on LetsRun and ask Jack Daniels a question and he answers!"

Yet, as with all cases of information overload, the current wealth of available running knowledge has its downsides. Leonardi can, with a little digging, find out exactly what the three girls who beat her at outdoor nationals are doing. What, then, does someone who describes herself as very competitive do with the knowledge that many of her peers do twice her mileage?

"We have a general philosophy about mileage and what workouts are incorporated and how she rests, and I'm surprised how different it is from what a lot of people do, because to me it just makes sense," Jack says. "She, all the time, absolutely, has one rest day a week, and at the end of the season when the big meets start coming she'll take two rest days a week.

"One of the things we've seen is a lot of these girls who run a lot get hurt. They have great results but they get hurt and are out for long periods of time. Abbey hasn't had a sidelining injury yet," he says while knocking on a wood table.

Barry's presence, however, might be the most effective check on Leonardi wanting to do too much too soon.

"We ran at a race and we were cooling down," Leonardi says, "and she said she'd have to run 20 miles in the morning at 5:00, and I was just like, 'Why?' and she said she didn't know why."